info pls: 60s music & spirituality

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: GUEST,Sidewinder
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 06:54 PM

An interesting difference of opinion here - firstly Brucie I like your attitude everythings cool whether we agree or not I am totally with you on that. Poppagator if your view is true why do all the gurus and spiritual leaders not make records rather than preach and write? It is, as I said; far too superficial a medium to really have a productive effect on any situation or existing state- intellectually and/or politically.Think of the people within music you admire i.e Lennon " I don't believe in Beatles" from the song God. Do you not think he contemplated what he was saying in that song? Dylan also many times has rubbished his best works and said it doesn't really amount to a great deal aesthetically. There is far more to be learned from reading Hegel,Descartes,Ionescu,Marx,etc. than listening to Mr. Zimmerman - believe me; though I do not knock his efforts by any means.

Best Wishes

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 06:14 PM

But, if ya don't see it that way, that's cool.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 06:13 PM

Doth not music have charms to soothe the savage breast?

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 06:12 PM

"...all music is superficial..."

!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?

I would argue the exact contrary -- that music can provide a depth of expression a least as great, if not moreso, than *any* other art form. And song, certainly, includes the literal meaning of lyrics enhanced by the musical setting. For an artist trying to convey a spiritual message, songwriting provides at least as effective a means as anything else he'she might attempt.

Now, whether any spiritual communication actually takes place depends as much upon the listener as upon the artist. And in the (very common) situation where a performer is interpreting another person's songwriting effort, there are three (or more) individuals in the mix, all of whom need to be "on the same page," all taking each other seriously, for a serious message to be conveyed.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: GUEST,Sidewinder
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 06:00 PM

Thank you Ev for your gracious understanding of my point of view I really have no axe to grind with 60s music or its purveyors I truly love a great deal of it. However, I would add to my previous statement that all music is superficial and therefore has no real spiritual identity it is merely the second hand ( at best ) meanderings of less than brilliant minds and the tonal and modular qualities mean far more to the average listener than any spritual pretensions. The real understanding of spiritual qualities within music are as contrived as any Dylan song and for my own pleasure I much prefer Dylans' storytelling abilities to his malapropisms.

God Bless

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: ev
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 02:28 PM

Sidewinder brings up some valid points from the view of a strict academic interpretation.
There is a vast rift between the exploitation of a penniless immigrant and a pop sycophant. (looks around for the PC police)
But I ask you -- is it not the effect on the listener we are talking about? Enlightenment rarely if ever takes place during dutiful worship. We come together to share -- BUT (IMHO) to bring a person to the table of the spiritual feast, an individual invitation must be accepted. Certainly there was and is hopelessness in the world -- and the 60's was a time of awakening -- even if in hindsight it looks like most of us stretched, yawned and rolled over.

And yes, Bob Dylan was nuthin but a skinny tinny voiced midwesterner with possible pretentions of poetry -- but I will take,
"Oh but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" with all it's implications, over any organized religion's pabulum dogma.
You get out of a thing, what you put into it.
When the need is there -- and our need never changes, we do seek to understand the void -- we take what we can find that speaks to us in the voice we can understand.

ev.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 05:09 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: GUEST,Sidewinder
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 01:53 AM

I believe spirituality means hope in a hopeless world i.e the spiritual songs sang by the slaves on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Therefore I would argue that you cannot define any song from the 60s as spiritual as most were written by failed art students and sycophantic millionaires as opposed to penniless immigrants and despairing souls far from glory without any notion of chart placings and royalty cheques. Tomorrow Never Knows is merely an aural experiment given a "throwaway title" as Lennon stated (it was originally titled "The Void") to spare the song any intellectual or spiritual or avante garde analysis. There are far more admirable pretensions of Eastern mysticism in George Harrisons work if you choose to go down that road. Personally I think the 60s was a time when bubblegum pop music collided with high idealism and poetic whimsy to furnish pseudo intellectual dropouts with a quicker way to die. As a massive Beatles fan I do think their music epitomises the whole field of 60s creativity, the highs and the lows, far more comprehensively than any other artists work but I would never argue for any spiritual aspirations within the body of work; as I'm sure none of the group would.As Lennon also said "It's just music you either like it or you don't".I would add to this that the only 60s track that comes close to spiritual in my humble opinion is Sam Cookes " A Change is Gonna Come ".

Regards.

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 01:13 AM

Dear sixtieschick,

"Mary, You Are my Friend"

Step down the air raid siren says,
Don't walk in the rain.
It's true they fought their battles,
Where the graveyards remain,
And now machine guns testify
That Hitler's back again,
Washington you know his footsteps,
What he's done is change his name,
And perhaps go more insane.

Mother Mary have forgiveness,
The Church has got you taking sides.
Your Son was killed for silver,
It's the same when soldiers die,
But I refuse to sell myself
Into illicit enterprise,
Genocidal Quisling governments
Sanction war with killer's pride'
But war's just murder undisguised.

Traitors govern us, they're inventing
Lies to hide their vicious smiles,
From Holy Mary representing
Every virgin with a child.

***************************************

I think I wrote that in '67 or '68. Not sure. It was a response to the continuing insanity of the Vietnam War, the NYC Cardinal (Spellman?) getting into it on the side of Washington, and the flow of garbage being fed to people in the news. The image of Mary was a powerful one for me. I was not religious in a formal sense--that is, I didn't go to church or have any involvement with one, but as twenty or twenty-one year old, I knew in my heart that things just weren't right. In retrospect (and that song has a really good melody BTW, pardon my immodesty), it was a search for something beyond the 'facts' per se, and a dip into the poetic world of image, archetype and symbol.

The song ended--on the record--with an explosion to symbolize a nuclear blast. It is one of four songs on that vinyl that I still like.

Don't mean to make this about me. Hope it's of help to you.

Bruce

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: sixtieschick
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 12:44 AM

Thank you for all the great posts. I'll try to respond individually to some. But for now I'll attempt to clarify what I have in mind: Basically, most of what I learned in the sixties I learned from musicians and music. I feel there was an especially intense collective search for meaning going on at that time that was expressed through music. Vietnam was horrific, and every male under 35 was faced with the draft. People were dying in the struggle for racial equality. King made nonviolent resistance a spiritual practice, just as Gandhi before him had done. The original leadership of the Civil Rights Movement were mostly ministers. The songs reflected that. In another arena entirely, in terms of spirituality as an inner exploration, many people initially took psychedelics and pot to gain insight and break perceptual boundaries. (Drugs were often called 'sacraments.') The music also reflected that. Out of that culture, a number of musicians embraced a variety of formal spiritual practices, with or without drugs, and wrote music to express the meaning they found in their practices, or teachers, or religions. I was influenced by some sixties music to explore my place in the world, to look within, and to take action to try to make things better. I am wondering what songs or musicians inspired YOU to undertake similar explorations, or that inspired you spiritually--in any way you wish to define your spirituality.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: ev
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 12:40 AM

hmmm, this may not be the sort of spirituality you're looking for, but the first time I heard Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm" not only was I stunned by the Matrilineal / goddess imagery -- it was coming out of such a Judeo-Christian poet..? I'm hardly a Dylan scholar, but this thread is not so much *what is there* as *what you need to be there*.   And So It Is for me.
But I've often said religion is what a person pours one's faith into, a container that helps give that faith a shape -- spirituality can be an alternate to organized religion: indeed it is a much more personal set of parameters for most individuals.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 12:15 AM

God spoke to me one day while I was on acid. He told me to stop doing it. I did.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 12:09 AM

iI've always suspected that the bulk of 60s spirituality was chemically induced. But what do I know?

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:45 PM

Spirituality to me is the deep feeling and assurance that 'someone' more important than me is takin' a personal interest in my well-being. I found the music to be a way to keep that communication/link open.

Funny how folk masses/services did attract kids, huh?

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:28 PM

After I returned from the first Woodstock, I was as revved up as everyone else who was there. At the time, I was going to a fairly nervous Catholic church, and I was approached to do something for the teenagers. They'd been looking at all these heavy-handed movies about drugs and smoking and the dangers of sex, and were only coming because their parents were forcing them to. So, I offered to do an evening of music from Woodstock, correlating songs to biblical passages. It was really quite easy because there was a lot of biblical imagery in folk-rock during that time. For each recording, I included a reference to a related bible scripture. The poor Priests almost had a heart attack the night I did the program. The church was in a gymnasium, and the kids wanted to move the pews so they could lie on the floor while they were listening to the music. And, the wanted the lights off. I somehow convinced the young Priest that it would be alright (and I had two young Priests who were friends who gave credibility to my efforts.) And, instead of the usual four or five kids who were forced to come to the programs for teenagers, we must have had 100 kids there. They'd never experienced anything like it (and never did again.) It was such a success that I was asked to repeat it at another Catholic church.

I've long since lost my notes about the program, or I'd be glad to share it with you.

One thing I never am sure of. What do you mean by Spirituality? It means many different things..

Jerry

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:14 PM

In the beginning, there was light!

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:07 PM

Oh, where to start???

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:03 PM

You, too, Guest. Cross posted.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:02 PM

All songs have to be contextualized, IMO. That's what performers do on stage when they 'grab' an audience. Pacing and context. It's the job of the performer to ace where a given audience 'is' and take 'em where the performer convinces them they wanna go.

A tremendous rendition of WSO can be found on Seeger's WSO Concert at Carnegie Hall. It worked, and the audience was up for it. It was a song meant to give people heart and determination.

Some demonstrations were pretty damned scary. Having an 80-90 pound German Shepherd straining at the end of a leash snarling at you is a situation calling for a .357 or some serious spiritual support. That's what the songs were meant for, IMO. They were the expressions of dreams and hopes for a better world; the expressions of will from the singers: little kids to old adults. They helped give a sense of comfort--as much as one can find that while looking down the muzzles of rifles held by kids who were just as scared as the people who were protesting.

Still, today, great oratory can move people, even when it's 'old' oration. I read MLK's "I have a Dream" speech to grade 11 or 12 students after establishing the historical context. I am a percent of a percent of a percent the speaker that King was, but my students love it. Imagine the feeling in that crowd when King did it in person? Wow!

Good eye, sc and PG.

Later.

BM

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:00 PM

Many songs back then seemed to have a kind of oracular quality that touched on spiritual currents that were part of the time, not necessarily easy to get in touch with now.

The Pearls Before Swine song "Another Time" felt (still feels) like something out of the Tao Te Ching, maybe. Tom Rapp supposedly wrote it as a high school student in Florida after a serious car accident suddenly thrust him into a new perspective.

I thought the self-titled Traffic album was very oracular, a kind of Rosetta Stone to what it was to be alive them, veiled under a pop veneer.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: PoppaGator
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 01:51 PM

I certainly agree about "We Shall Overcome," and it's true that the *context* in which one heard/sang such a song had everything to do with tis spiritual impact.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: sixtieschick
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 01:45 PM

These are great. I was thinking about ""We Shall Overcome." It was eventually sung to death, but in the beginning it was a very spiritually powerful anthem. It was moving, inspiring and unifying when blacks and whites would hold hands--in public!--and sing it together, led by M.L. King and Joan Baez and others. On a totally different note (literally) when Peter Townshend of the Who embraced Meher Baba and wrote parts of Tommy in a spiritual vein, and other Brits followed other gurus and started singing about a new, drug-free way to get high, it changed a lot of lives. Any thoughts or personal experiences along those lines? There was also a lot of obnoxious stuff going down--the zeal of converts--like the kid who practically tackled me in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1976, trying to convert me to Christianity by telling me that "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" was a Christian song, therefore proving that Christianity was really hip and cool.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 07:35 AM

Welcome, daylia.

Loved that movie BTW.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: *daylia*
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 07:23 AM

"One Tin Soldier" was from "The Legend of Billy Jack"? But but but - I saw that movie in the early 70's and it was great, but I don't remember the song. Maybe I was the one on acid! Thanks, brucie.

daylia


(PS just funnin - I was only a kid so I was still too smart to voluntarily mess myself up that way. Yet.)

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 07:16 AM

ONE TIN SOLDIER
(The Legend of Billy Jack)
words and music by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter
Copyright © 1969 by ABC / Dunhill Music, Inc.

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: *daylia*
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 07:11 AM

Sounds "spiritual" enough to me, brucie. I remember learning Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind", also "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "One Tin Soldier" (wish I knew who wrote that!) in elementary school. I consider them all pretty spiritual!

But can anything beat the Beatles?

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom - Let it Be..."


Or "Yes" for their metaphysical melodiousness ...


In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there ...

Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagle's dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more
Than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers
By in our hand
Next to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a million years

I'll be the roundabout
The words will make you out 'n' out
I'll be the roundabout
The words will make you out 'n' out

Oooo just pondering those words still makes my head spin a bit. Hmmm ... maybe the song's not inspired as much by "spirituality" as by the mind-bending acid that was around in the 60's!

Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: Peace
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 03:39 AM

The song that impacted me most in a 'spiritual' sense was Dylan's "Hard Rain." I listened to it repeatedly, and I was struck forcefully by the evocative images of what I took to be a post-nuclear world. I hadn't been oblivious to the cold war I grew up with, but that one song 'brought it all back home' for me. It set the course of my life for a few years, and when I worked for McCarthy in the 1967 primaries, I think maybe it was because of that song. It has never left me, with all its one-line statements and its haunting pictures. It is, to me, the most 'visual' of Dylan's work, although otheres may disagree with that.

This likely isn't what you are looking for, but I am not 'spiritual' in the sense you imply, and it's all I got to offer at this time.

BM

Subject: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
From: sixtieschick
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 03:06 AM

A very sincere question I am asking as part of research for a book: Did any songs or musicians from the sixties influence or inspire your spiritual life? Many people first learned about spirituality from music and musicians. For instance, "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles really intrigued me. Its cryptic lyrics were supposed to come from "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." It sent me on a wonderful journey into Tibetan Buddhism for awhile. Did a song or artist send you down a particular spiritual path or to a particular teacher or teaching? Has that continued for you? Thank you very much in advance.